What is contemplative computing?

Contemplative computing may sound like an oxymoron, but it's really quite simple. It's about how to use information technologies and social media so they're not endlessly distracting and demanding, but instead help us be more mindful, focused and creative.

About Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

I write about people, technology, and the worlds they make.

My book on contemplative computing, The Distraction Addiction, was published by Little, Brown and Company in 2013. (It's been translated into Dutch (as Verslaafd aan afleiding) and Spanish (as Enamorados de la Distracción); Russian, Chinese and Korean translations are in the works.)

My next book, Rest: Why Working Less Gets More Done, is under contract with Basic Books. Until it's out, you can follow my thinking about deliberate rest, creativity, and productivity on the project Web site.

On Internet, information remember YOU: Evgeny Morozov on Delete

Okay, I have no idea what that title means. But I wanted to flag this review:

According to Mayer-Schönberger, we have committed too much information to “external memory,” thus abandoning control over our personal records to “unknown others.” Thanks to this reckless abandonment, these others gain new ways to dictate our behavior. Moreover, as we store more of what we say for posterity, we are likely to become more conservative, to censor ourselves and err on the side of saying nothing….

Delete is more a romanticist rebellion against technology than a how-to manual. The focus of the rebellion is technologically enhanced remembering, and Delete is an impassioned call for less of it. Unfortunately, this interesting argument suffers from three large and arguably fatal flaws: a very loose account of what memory is, an insufficient appreciation of the value of remembering, and—most important for public policy—an unconvincing effort to distinguish the animating concerns about memory from more conventional (and serious) concerns about privacy.